This invention relates to an assembly station, particularly for automotive vehicle bodies. Transporting devices, such as transport frames or carts carry work-pieces (which are to be worked on by tools in a work zone) to the assembly station and subsequently move the work-pieces out of the assembly station. The transporting devices have a travel path passing through the assembly station
It is known to arrange, for example, components to be spot-welded to form a vehicle body, on transport frames or carriages which are displaceable along a travel path such that the components are subsequently aligned to assume a desired relative position with respect to one another and are, after performing correctional displacements by clamping devices, welded to one another. The transport frames receive travel commands, for example, by a cable which lies on the assembly floor and travel, without rails, into the working zone of the assembly station. The transport frames are stopped in the station while work o the work-pieces is performed and are subsequently moved out of the assembly station, for example, to a subsequent assembly station.
In known assembly stations of the above-outlined type, difficulties have been encountered in so arranging the required tools such as welding robots that they do not project into the travel path of the transport frames and the components supported thereon. In essence, for such a purpose, all tools have to be arranged on two opposite sides of the transport frame dwelling in the work zone of the assembly station because the other two opposite sides have to be maintained free lest they obstruct the travel path of the transport frame. In conventional assembly stations this problem may be cured in principle only by providing a greater number of assembly stations, each having only a relatively small number of tools which may be easily arranged. In the work zone on the two opposite sides of the transport frame, as related to its travel path. Such a solution, however, involves not only a substantial structural expense, but also needs a very large floor space.